Off the wall news.

[cobychuck]

If you find any news that's slightly to the wrong side of sanity, throw it up here for our entertainment!

He's a Crunchy nut... advert showing man riding dog sparks fury



Breakfast food company Kellogg's has come under fire from animal lovers furious about a television advert showing a man riding a dog like a horse.

Nearly 100 complaints have been made against the new Crunchy Nut Cornflakes advert, which shows a very small man finishing work and riding home on the back of an Irish Wolfhound.

Dog lovers say the behaviour in the scene is cruel and could be copied by children.

However, no action is to be taken by the Advertising Standards Authority, which has dismissed the complaints.

It says viewers would be able to spot that the scenes were computer-generated.

In the advert, the man is seen riding the dog home from work. Text at the bottom of the screen reads: "Don't try this with your dog at home."

After the man arrives home, milk is poured on to a bowl of the cereal by what appears to be the dog's paw. The man is then seen sitting at his kitchen table eating it.

A spokesman for Kellogg's said the idea of their advertising campaign was to depict methods of transport that are so unfeasible they defied reality.

Kellogg's said a vet was present at the shoot to ensure the well-being of the animal. It added that no one actually rode the dog.

The Advertising Standards Authority cleared the advert, providing it was shown away from programmes that children could watch.

[tater]

LMAO...i would love to see that one!

[Old-Navy]

GREEN BAY, Wis. - A pig on the lam from a trip to the butcher withstood Taser shots from police officers and eluded authorities for more than an hour after wandering onto Green Bay's major highway Wednesday night.

The 150-pound pig was spotted by a passing driver on U.S. 41 at 6 p.m. Wednesday night, Green Bay Police Lt. Todd LePine said. The animal reportedly went into traffic several times, creating a hazard, he said.

Officers located the pig about 7 p.m. and made two attempts to subdue it with a stun gun, he said, but it fled both times after pulling out the Taser probes.

A passerby who described himself as a former pig farmer tried to wrestle the animal, but the animal pulled away from him as well, LePine said.

Three tranquilizer darts were finally used to bring the pig under control, and it was placed in blanket and lifted into an animal control van, LePine said.

The animal was taken to the Bay Area Humane Shelter that evening. Police said a local attorney planned to claim the pig Thursday.

Appleton attorney Nila Robinson, who raises pigs on her farm, told the Green Bay Press Gazette the pig was hers. The animal escaped somewhere between an Appleton Starbucks and Maplewood Meats near Green Bay.

The wild run was a success for the pig, at least for now.

"The pig's not going to slaughter anytime soon," Robinson told the Press Gazette. "It was shot with tranquilizers, and what does that do to a pig? I'll just have to give it some thought. The pig's future at present is unknown."

[cobychuck]

Maybe not so "off the wall", but still...


Man rejects first penis transplant


Chinese surgeons have performed the world's first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. "His quality of life was affected severely," said Dr Weilie Hu, a surgeon at Guangzhou General Hospital.
Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ.

The procedure, described in a case study due to appear in the journal European Urology next month, represents a big leap forward in transplant surgery; it required complex microsurgery to connect nerves and tiny blood vessels.

The surgical team claims the operation was a success. After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally.

Doctors have previously succeeded in reuniting men with their sexual organs after traumatic accidents or attacks, but the Guangzhou operation is the first in which a donor penis has successfully been attached to another man.

Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.

Jean-Michel Dubernard, the French surgeon who performed the world's first face transplant on a woman who had been attacked by a dog this year, said psychological factors were a serious issue for many patients receiving certain "allografts", or organs from donors. "Psychological consequences of hand and face allografts show that it is not so easy to use and see permanently a dead person's hands, nor is it easy to look in a mirror to see a dead person's face," he wrote in the journal. "Clearly, in the Chinese case the failure at a very early stage was first psychological. It involved the recipient's wife and raised many questions."

In 2001, surgeons were forced to amputate the world's first transplanted hand from Clint Hallam, a 50-year-old New Zealander, who said he wanted the "hideous and withered" hand removed because he had become "mentally detached" from it. The original transplant was conducted by Prof Dubernard's team at the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyons, who have since performed the world's first double arm transplant.

Andrew George, a transplant expert at Imperial College, London, said: "Doing a penis transplant should be no more complex than anything else. But it takes time for nerve sensations to kick in and it's not clear whether the patient would ever be able to have sex with it. The question is whether it's right to be doing a transplant for what may be seen as cosmetic reasons."

[docbyers]

10cm (4") may not have been enough.  It's no wonder the wife rejected the transplant!

[docbyers]

Police: Would-Be Carjacker Picks Wrong Car

HAMILTON - Hamilton police are looking for a man who attempted to carjack the wrong driver on Sunday. Investigators said a man walked up to a car waiting at a red light at Pershing Avenue and Neilan Boulevard just after 3 a.m., tapped on the window with a handgun and tried to open the passenger door.

Police said that a moment later, the man realized his would-be victim was a police officer -- still in uniform -- on his way home from work.

The man ran from the intersection, with the officer in pursuit. Police said the man fired one shot at the officer, who returned fire.

The gunman managed to avoid capture, but officers said they found his gun and a bike the gunman may have been riding prior to the incident.

[Old-Navy]

 Colombia's exports of "hormiga culona" ("big-butt queen ants") are down this year due to a harsh winter and aggressive lizards and birds, creating steep prices for chocolate-dipped ants in London and ant-based sauces and spreads at home, according to an August Associated Press dispatch. And a July Reuters story on the Explorers Club in New York City called it virtually the only place where gourmets can enjoy such delicacies as scorpion, cricket, tarantula and maggot, and pigeon pate, as well as odd parts of common livestock. Worms are also prized if they've been "evacuated" on oatmeal for a few days before serving.

[Old-Navy]

The Chicago Tribune reported in March that dozens of blind students in Chicago public schools are nonetheless required to take driver education classes. One sightless but otherwise optimistic student told the Tribune she resented the requirement because it made her uncharacteristically dwell on something that she cannot do. [Chicago Sun-Times, 2-11-06]

[Old-Navy]

Weird Chinese:  In rural Jiangsu province, some still believe that a well-attended funeral leads to a successful afterlife, but police have recently cracked down on the practice of hiring strippers to punch up attendance, according to an August Reuters dispatch.

[Old-Navy]

Problem Solved:  (1) Darrell Rodgers, 40, was treated at Bloomington (Ind.) Hospital in August after shooting himself in the left knee because he felt he had to try something to end the pain there (pain possibly from having shot himself in that knee 10 years earlier). (2) Electrician Paul Trotman, 51, was arrested in Clay County, Fla., in August after allegedly rigging an electrical device to shock a 3 1/2-year-old boy who lived with Trotman and his wife, after Trotman got fed up that the boy was constantly urinating on electrical outlets just to see sparks fly. [Herald-Times (Bloomington), 8-12-06] [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 8-14-06]

[docbyers]

Alcohol use helps boost income: study

People who consume alcohol earn significantly more at their jobs than non-drinkers, according to a US study that highlighted "social capital" gained from drinking.

The study published in the Journal of Labor Research Thursday concluded that drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than teetotalers, and that men who drink socially bring home an additional seven percent in pay.

"Social drinking builds social capital," said Edward Stringham, an economics professor at San Jose State University and co-author of the study with fellow researcher Bethany Peters.

"Social drinkers are out networking, building relationships, and adding contacts to their BlackBerries that result in bigger paychecks."

The authors acknowledged their study, funded by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, contradicted research released in 2000 by the Harvard School of Public Health.

"We created our hypothesis through casual observation and examination of scholarly accounts," the authors said.

"Drinkers typically tend to be more social than abstainers."

The researchers said their empirical survey backed up the theory, and said the most likely explanation is that drinkers have a wider range of social contacts that help provide better job and business opportunities.

"Drinkers may be able to socialize more with clients and co-workers, giving drinkers an advantage in important relationships," the researchers said.

"Drinking may also provide individuals with opportunities to learn people, business, and social skills."

They also said these conclusions provide arguments against policies aimed at curbing alcohol use on university campuses and public venues.

"Not only do anti-alcohol policies reduce drinkers' fun, but they may also decrease earnings," the study said.

"One of the unintended consequences of alcohol restrictions is that they push drinking into private settings. This occurred during the Alcohol Prohibition of 1920-1933 and is happening on college campuses today. By preventing people from drinking in public, anti-alcohol policies eliminate one of the most important aspects of drinking: increased social capital."

The researchers found some differences in the economic effects of drinking among men and women. They concluded that men who drink earn 10 percent more than abstainers and women drinkers earn 14 percent more than non-drinkers.

However, unlike men, who get a seven percent income boost from drinking in bars, women who frequent bars at least once per month do not show higher earnings than women drinkers who do not visit bars.

"Perhaps women increase social capital apart from drinking in bars," the researchers said in an effort to explain the gender gap.

[docbyers]

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish woman who grew marijuana to calm the nerves of her cow has been charged with cultivating a narcotic by police in the western town of Lobez.

The cow had been "skittish and unruly" -- once breaking a person's arm -- until someone suggested mixing cannabis in with its feed, the woman told police.

"The cow became as calm as a lamb," the 55-year-old woman said, according to the PAP news agency.

The woman's plants, grown from seeds she bought at a market, reached nearly three metres (yards) tall and were extremely potent, police said.

Marijuana possession is a crime throughout Poland. The woman faces up to three years in jail if convicted.

[Old-Navy]

In an attempt to raise environmental awareness, two concerned citizens of Walpole, Mass., hosted a "pump-out party" in June, with wine and cheese, to encourage neighbors to keep their septic systems in good order. The hosts allowed their own tank to be publicly cleaned as a demonstration, although the drinking and eating portion of the party came to a halt at that point, according to the Daily News Transcript of suburban Boston. [Boston Herald-Daily News Transcript, 6-7-06]

[coastiecappy]

Darwin Award
Ken Charles Barger 47, shot himself to death in Newton, NC. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Missing the Boat
A couple of Dublin lads, aged 19 and 20, were running a little late from their day's adventures in Holyhead, North Wales, and missed their ferry boat home. But no problem mate, they decided they'd just take the 30-foot fishing trawler sitting over yonder, and set sail for home a mere 67 miles across the Irish Sea. Well, there was just one small problem with their plan; neither knew anything about boats or the sea. They were hopelessly lost in no time and ended up placing a Mayday call to what they thought was the Irish Coast Guard, which would come to rescue them. Wrong! Turns out it was the Coast Guard in Holyhead. After going 12 miles in the wrong direction, they were towed back to Holyhead and arrested. The police inspector stated that, " probably alchol had a part to play " in the incident.

[tater]

LAGOS, Nigeria - A Nigerian murder suspect accused of killing his brother with an axe told police investigators he actually attacked a goat, which was only later magically transformed into his sibling's corpse, officials said Thursday.

The man, whose name wasn't released, offered police his explanation after his arrest on Tuesday in the death of his brother the previous day at Isseluku village in southern Nigeria.

"He said that the goats were on his farm and he tried to chase them away. When one wouldn't move, he attacked it with an axe. He said it then turned into his brother," Police Commissioner Udom Ekpoudom told the Associated Press.

Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander's penis magically disappear.

(read the last part again)